“There's nothing quite like a good quest for getting your blood pumping.”

“There's nothing like a pack of mules to give one a sense of entourage.”

“The quest for a lost city erodes your body, damaging you beyond all reason. But it is your mind that bears the heaviest toll. Listen to the doubters, the worriers and the weak, and the vaguest hope of success evaporates.”

“As far as Samson was concerned I was just another foreigner in pursuit of a lunatic quest.”

“There is nothing quite as unpleasant as wearing a pair of briefs which have been trailed through a Calcutta courtyard. Nothing, that is, except having one's elbows and knees lacerated by unseen slivers of glass and discarded razor blades.”

“I am all for curses and superstition, but there's a point at which they start getting in the way. That point had arrived.”

“Once in a very long time you come across a book that is far, far more than the ink, the glue and the paper, a book that seeps into your blood.”